Marx Fall Out

While reading moral-skepticism-and-moral-disagreement-developing-an-argument-from-nietzsche
(go on, have a read, you know you ought to want to) I remarked to Mr HG as he passed through on his way to lunch:

" The trouble with Marx is he was a really rotten philosopher."

(Preprandial exchanges are more usually on the lines of, 'You might like the lasagne but you'll need to warm it, and there are some little lamb chops and washed salad in the fridge').

 To which he replied, in the spirit of the moment:

 "I never thought Marx was much of a philosopher,"  pause, "Or of an economist, come to think of it." pause, "He was a revolutionary propagandist; he belongs with agitprop."

 "His main contribution to economics was a theory of the evolution of economic systems, which he called modes of production.  Based on the rise of contradictions in society and their resolution through institutional change.  He was aware of that, for he wrote, to Engels, claiming to have done for political economy what Darwin had done for the species.  Unfortunately here he made three most serious mistakes:

 he gave primacy to economic factors (materialism);

 secondly he believed that there was a necessary and irreversible sequence in the appearance of successive systems;

thirdly he believed there was one, superior system - communism - which would abolish classes and, therefore social conflicts and contradictions, and be the final solution."

Never get between Mr HG and his lunch.  It makes him dismissive beyond his usual inclination.